Hot Pot Gone Wrong

by John Pasden

14 Jan 2007

“Hot pot” (火锅) is one of the most universally loved Chinese dining experiences. It only seemed natural for us to take ChinesePod blogger Frank for hot pot when he came for a visit.

It was a nice meal, and reasonably priced (we ate at 傣妹 on Huaihai Lu). It went a little bad, towards the end, however. Part of it was my fault. I ordered too much food. Then, as we were all getting really full, we dumped too much food into the pot at once. The result was that some of the stuff on the bottom started to burn. The food began to take on a “smoky” flavor which just got really nasty as the reddish spicy broth turned brown. Here’s a pic:

Introduced a buddy (Peter) to the hot pot (Korean style) before Christmas and we went ballistic, packing the hot boiling water with veggies, fish balls, meat balls, tofu, noodles, eggs, etc. and the thing overflowed like a backed up toilet. The solution: eat quickly and add more water. But it looks like that hot pot is about half the size of the Korean style. Did the clerk refill the hot pot or did you guys let it go on a full stomach?

Potato can be good if you eat it at the right time, maybe 4 minutes after going in. But don’t make the same mistake I made once: eggplant. In 10 seconds, it was a big mess. I don’t even know why they have it on the menu. Cucumber dissapears a lot too.

that’s kind of the point. That should never happen to hotpot. Anywhere. It should be impossible to screw it up. You couldn’t adjust the heat? Maybe I should amend my comment to: Remind me never to get hotpot in Shanghai. With John Pasden.

Potatoes are an awesome hotpot ingredient. They should go in towards the end though. Cucumbers are excellent as well: just don’t leave them in too long. One thing the Taiwanese add that I really like a lot is corn. Very very tasty.

Next time you are hungry and get the urge to eat hotpot, try this instead: crack open a coconut with your bare hands, eat the meat, then try to convince a woman that a 2$ bottle of lotion from Walgreens will keep her skin looking no less young than an 80$ bottle from a department store cosmetics counter. The result? You will have done alot of work for a little bit of food, you will still be hungry, and you will have wasted a lot of time. Presto: “virtual hotpot”.

Prince, you’re funny. I’ve personally messed up a few hot pots by combining too meat and seafood, and savage / hungry enough, requested a new pot with fresh oily water – problem solved. But hey John, didn’t we get hot pot BBQ that one night when we walked for like miles and met up with SS and her flight attendant friend – the one that had a baby but was like size 0, fine and still down to flirt?

I’ve never seen such a nasty looking hotpot in my life… and I eat it almost weekly. The worst I’ve ever done is put a bunch of shellfish in the 麻辣 side of an half&half pot. That was odd, since it gave the 豬血糕 a kind of fishy flavor, but I sure as heck haven’t seen it burnt. In John’s defense, though, the hotpot place he took me to when I visited last summer was great. No spicy broth turned brown. No smoke.